Must-See Free Events at Lincoln Center in August

Must-See Free Events at Lincoln Center in August

From classical music to contemporary dance, Lincoln Center is jam-packed with free events to enjoy through the end of summer, in addition to the world-class year-round lineup of free events at the David Rubenstein Atrium. See the calendar for a list of all upcoming events.

August 1–5

Lincoln Center's campus becomes the stage for this "richly inventive, wonderfully perceptive" set of duets (Herald, U.K.) from acclaimed Scottish choreographer Janis Claxton. Over the course of nine encounters, pairs of dancers emerge from the crowds to offer ephemeral glimpses of love and affection, from overt flirtation to secret passions, all set to a gorgeous score by Pippa Murphy. A unanimous hit at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Duets will delight visitors during the second week of Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

August 1

Last summer, NPR Music and Lincoln Center radically changed how we talk about the history of popular music with the publication of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women list and a live show at Lincoln Center Out of Doors celebrating those albums. This marked the beginning of the Turning the Tables project, a challenge to think bigger about music's past, present, and future by highlighting voices often relegated to its margins. This year, NPR's Turning the Tables Live: 21st-Century Edition shifts focus toward a new generation of artists claiming center stage. To celebrate, we present a night of music and conversation with Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum recording artist and singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen; visionary Chicago R&B artist and poet Jamila Woods; Americana supergroup I'm With Her; and more.

August 2

Composers Courtney Bryan, Ashley Fure George Lewis, and Michael Pisaro, whose works will be performed during the Mostly Mozart Festival, join members of the International Contemporar Ensemble for a free discussion of their works, the creative process, and the future of classical music.

August 2

"A true original" (Sputnik Music) out of Brazil's flourishing experimental music scene, singer-songwriter Negro Leo uses free jazz, funk, noise, Brazilian popular music, tropicalia, and no wave as the building blocks of a colorful and surreal musical universe. Long associated with the label Quintavant and the Rio club Audio Rebel, he has recently made the move to São Paulo, where he recorded his ambitious new album Action Lekking.

August 2

OkayAfrica—the online hub of the African New Wave—brings two superstars and one of the top Afrobeat DJs in the world to Damrosch Park for this high-octane party. Drawing on everything from Ghanaian highlife, Ivorian coupé-décalé, and American hip-hop, the Nigerian "Queen of Afrobeats" Yemi Alade (Fader) lights up the stage with power vocals and irrepressible charisma. DJ Maphorisa, the multiplatinum South African producer known for his banging blend of house and Afropop, and New York's own DJ Tunez, known in NYC for his Blackout parties and worldwide for collaborations with Wizkid, Davido, and more, will keep you feeling great all night long.

August 3

Known to '70s FM radio kids and early MTV fans as the lead singer of the J. Geils Band ("Centerfold," "Love Stinks"), Peter Wolf is a sharp songwriter and eternally hip character who possesses an encyclopedic command of blues, pop, funk, soul, bluegrass, and rock. Super Soul Banned—legendary drummer Steve Jordan's all-star funk project featuring Kool & the Gang's Ronald Bell, the Beastie Boys' Mix Master Mike, guitarist Ray Parker Jr., and artists that have played with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Sonny Rollins—are the perfect traveling companions for Wolf's "tour de force excursion through the landscape of American music" (All About Jazz).

August 4

For 50 years, Dance Theatre of Harlem has been spreading a message of empowerment through the arts. In recent years, the historic company has used its superlative, multiethnic group of artists to present a powerful vision for ballet in the 21st century. For this celebratory evening, the company dances signature works that embody this impressive legacy. The magic of the night begins with London-born, Paris-based singer-songwriter ALA.NI, who brings the spirit of Billie Holiday and Judy Garland to her jewel box of intimate songs.

August 5

For this 50th birthday celebration, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance calls upon some of its favorite artists—many of whom got their start with CTMD—for an eclectic, energetic afternoon of music reflecting the diversity of New York City's neighborhoods. Among the guests are klezmer pioneer Andy Statman, Irish-American supergroup Cherish the Ladies, the groundbreaking Afro-Colombian band Grupo Rebolu, and the miraculous Guinean dancer, drummer, and singer Sidiki Conde and his group Tokounou.

August 5

Join the Caribbean Cultural Center as they celebrate the legacy of its founder Marta Moreno Vega with music and dance inspired by West African Yoruba traditions. Dance performances by the Something Postitive Dance Company open and close this evening that also features live music from Puerto Rican ensemble Yuba Iré and two celebrated Miami bands—Philbert Armenteros y Los Herederos and PALO! In between, world-renowned DJs keep the vibe going with sets of remixed Yoruba songs.

August 8

"The music is different here. The vibrations are different here." So opens the 1972 Afrofuturist sci-fi film Space Is the Place by jazz cult-icon Sun Ra. But these words could also apply to (le) poisson rouge, the Bleecker Street club known for its diverse, open-minded programming. This cosmic evening, part of LPR's 10th-anniversary celebrations, builds up to the Sun Ra Arkestra's live performance of the score to the film, in which Black people create their own paradise on Saturn, transported there by music. Getting us to that place tonight are the beloved songs of Bill Withers ("Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone," "Just the Two of Us") performed by Blue Note jazz and R&B artist José James. Jazz pianist and composer Samora Pinderhughes opens with The Transformations Suite, a musical examination of the radical history of resistance within communities of the African diaspora.

August 9

Photo by Armen Elliott

August 9

A Wave and waves performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble at the David Rubenstein Plaza

Echoing the environmental themes and communal experience of John Luther Adams's In the Name of the Earth, Michael Pisaro's 75-minute piece embeds audience members in a grid of 100 performers, where they are slowly submerged in an ocean of sound. Isolated, imperceptibly soft noises—sandpaper on stone, seeds falling on glass, bowed bells—are layered into powerful waves of sound adding to the immersive nature of the experience. A work of monumental scale, presented with uncommon immediacy, a wave and waves melds microscopic moments of friction, gravity, and vibration into a single, pulsing organism.

August 10

Leonard Bernstein's score to West Side Story fused progressive big-band jazz, lyric opera, modern dance, and Latin rhythms into a groundbreaking masterpiece that revolutionized the Broadway musical. Celebrate Maestro Bernstein's centennial year with the Grammy-nominated Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band. Just a few blocks from where the opening of the film was shot, they reimagine the timeless instrumental score using traditional Afro-Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Brazilian, Venezuelan, and Mexican rhythms, funk, rock, and jazz. Poets La Bruja and Rich Villar kick off the evening with an electrifying set of spoken word.

August 11

Join together with hundreds of neighbors, visitors, and singers in the northernmost part of Central Park for the world premiere of In the Name of the Earth, a large-scale choral work by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer John Luther Adams. In this commission for four choirs led by the incomparable Simon Halsey, nearly 800 experienced and amateur singers transform the names of North American rivers, lakes, mountains, and deserts into a communal meditation on Adams's holy trinity: the Earth, the Water, and the Holy Wind. Experience geography in sight and sound as you move around the beautiful water of the Harlem Meer and through an enveloping sound world created by 360-degree singing.

August 11

For the past six decades, American music icon Mavis Staples has been a beacon of spiritual fortitude for artists from Bob Dylan to Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, whose third collaboration with Staples, If All I Was Was Black, was released to critical acclaim in 2017. Tonight, she brings us together with the power of her voice and a message of strength, perseverance, and love that is as vital today as it was when she and her family sang alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Grammy-winning producer and singer-songwriter Joe Henry, who has worked with Allen Toussaint, Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, and many others, adds his poetic storytelling to this inspiring evening of song.

August 12

With her infectious blend of Nashville country, Memphis soul, and Texas twang, Margo Price is "one of the most compelling country talents to come out of Nashville in recent memory" (Vulture). She brings unflinching honesty and vivid songcraft to nuanced portraits of men and women just trying to get by, evoking everyone from Waylon and Willie to Loretta and Dolly along the way. Price splits the night with singer-songwriter Lukas Nelson (Willie's son) and his band. On tour with Neil Young in recent years, they've built a devoted following for their distinctive brand of cosmic country soul.

August 16

Using unconventional techniques, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Jorge Glem draws a seemingly limitless array of sounds from the cuatro, a four-stringed Venezuelan folk instrument. Glem, who has shared the stage with artists such as Paquito D'Rivera, Jordan Rudess, Rubén Blades, Carlos Vives, and Calle 13, is an unwavering champion of the instrument both on stage and through his #4CuatroMusic movement on social media. Experience the full power of Glem's cuatro revolution at this free show.

August 23

Join several generations of music stars from the Congo basin for a night of soukous, the fast-paced, highly danceable fusion of traditional Congolese melodies and Afro-Cuban rhythms. With guitars, percussion, vocals, and dancers, this 12-piece band shakes up the Atrium with the infectious dance music that has thrilled revelers from Kinshasa to Nairobi to Paris.

August 30

Join a group of pioneering Caribbean women for this powerful night of music. Odaymara Cuesta and Olivia Prendes, a.k.a. Krudas Cubensi, are Cuban hip-hop MCs, independent musicians, poets, theater performers, and educators standing up for Black and Latin womxn, immigrants, queers, and people of color. They choose art as a weapon to fight against oppression and for justice, balance, and human rights for all. They're joined by the Dominican singer-songwriter Carolina Camacho, who fuses folkloric rhythms with electronic and vocal jazz and "potent lyrics about the power of women, the body, and movement" (Remezcla).